


And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even

by Clever_friend



Category: The Omen (Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-13
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2021-03-01 20:34:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,611
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23633176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Clever_friend/pseuds/Clever_friend
Summary: the AU in which the Antichrist is not Damien, but Mark.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 7





	And the other lamb thou shalt offer at even

**Author's Note:**

> Translated into English by [Kana_Go](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kana_Go)

Father Tassone, Father Spiletto and Mrs. Baylock once again were discussing the most important question. Their Lord had already turned three months old. Neither his mother, Mary Thorn, nor his father, Richard, suspected they were growing someone else’s child. In the Vatican, they were starting to have vague suspicions. Very soon Mark Thorn, the Antichrist, Satan’s son, was going to have his life in danger. 

This was Father Tassone’s idea.   
“Robert Thorn’s wife is pregnant,” he said. “The delivery is expected in July.”

“That’s nonsense,” Mrs. Baylock said. “You aren’t suggesting we should switch a newborn infant with a seven-month-old baby, are you?”

“Of course I’m not,” Father Tassone smiled. “But we can divert attention from our Lord. My friend in the observatory said that a supernova explosion was to happen on June, 6.”

“The kid will be born in July, what does this explosion have to do with him?” Father Spiletto started to argue but suddenly stopped.   
The realization hit him and Mrs. Baylock at the same moment.

“It’s okay if he’s born a month earlier,” Father Tassone said. “What difference does that make if he still has to die sooner or later? A labor induction injection or a c-section – and the Thorn family will have a boy born on June, 6, at 6 am on the day of a supernova explosion.” 

“What if the infant dies of all that?” Father Spiletto asked dubiously. 

“There are plenty of infants in a maternity hospital,” Mrs. Baylock said. “We’ll give the dead body to some other woman and Kate Thorn will get some other baby. Does it really matter who will be pierced with the seven daggers instead of Mark?” 

***

They didn’t have to switch the infants. For the rest of his life Robert Thorn was sure that his real son was a changeling. His wife had never ever known about the whole thing. 

Some really weird stuff was going on around the Thorns’ son. They weren’t able to baptize him in the church: Mrs. Baylock who was among the guests was staring at him, and he was screaming and panting so much that he had to be taken home. No one could influence home baptism – but it didn’t matter. No one knew about the home baptism but the family. Damien was a surprisingly healthy boy – this fact started to raise suspicions. Mark Thorn, though, had a cold twice and chickenpox once. 

When those in the Vatican started to get seriously worried about the birth of the Antichrist, Father Tassone went there and told them that he’d delivered a female jackal’s baby and given it to Robert Thorn. Pretending to be remorseful, he cried so violently that everyone believed him. Now no one thought about Richard and Mary’s son. The hunt to find the Antichrist began.

Mrs. Baylock got a job as Damien’s babysitter, and whenever his parents tried to get him to the church she gave him a pill with sweet bright red coating before they left. As soon as they reached the church Damien threw a tantrum and started convulsing. Of course, it didn’t always happen right in the church, sometimes he had a fit already on their way there – it depended on the traffic. When finally Robert Thorn believed, the Antichrist’s followers calmed down. It turned out they shouldn’t have. Damien survived again. Fortunately, newspapers found out about the attempt of his murder on the altar. Now when his uncle adopted him things got even better. Everybody was talking about the tragic death of Damien’s parents and nobody noticed the quiet death of Mary Thorn.

From now on, people started blaming Damien for all the weird things that happened in the Thorn family. The Antichrist hidden in plain view was safe. 

***

When Mark overheard Dr. Warren he almost had to laugh out loud. Could you imagine this – Damien, his cousin, was the Antichrist, all of a sudden. Probably Dr. Warren was really sick in the head. Then Mark got overcome by an unsettling feeling. The fact that people died frequently around Damien was true. His mother, his father and many others. Mark had paid no attention before.   
He took the Bible, hoping that the feeling would go away, but for some reason, each line echoed in his soul. He put the book aside and tried to sleep. But he couldn’t. 

***

Damien came out of the Academy, as usual, ran to the lake and pulled out the hidden pack of cigarettes. It’d been almost half a year since Mark and he had had a falling out. Mark was the one who’d done most of the quarreling. At first Damien had tried to deny everything, then he’d tried to convince him to go and rule the world together and then he’d got so angry that he’d said a lot of nasty things. Mark had shouted that Devil couldn’t have a brother, Damien had called him a traitor and they’d come home as enemies. Luckily, they were to return to the Academy the following day and it’d been easy to lie to his uncle’s and aunt’s questions, explaining that they’d ‘fought over a girl’. 

Since then they hadn’t been talking. Mark shunned him and Damien didn’t want to impose. But the exams and the holidays were soon. Damien had no idea how they’d be able to live in the same house without talking. How was he going to explain it to their relatives? ‘Mark happened to know that I was the Antichrist and then he decided he would never talk to me’. If Uncle didn’t believe him he’d send him to a mental hospital, and if he believed… Perhaps, he’d try to kill him on the altar just like Dad had done years ago?

Damien flicked a lighter, lit a cigarette and took a drag. Smoking wasn’t allowed in the Academy, but what would they do even if they found out? They wouldn’t expel him anyway. Though it seemed all his followers had forgotten about him lately. Sergeant Neff stopped calling him into his office to discuss his career, Paul Buher stopped visiting him. As if they’d decided that they’d brought him up to speed and he knew better what to do next. How to bring on the Apocalypse and so on. Except that Damien still didn’t understand anything. 

Damien heard footsteps from behind a tree and covered the pack of cigarettes quickly with his hand. It was silly: if it’d been one of the officers they’d have seen it anyway. But it was Mark. His face was deathly pale and his lips were bitten bloody. He sat next to Damien and moved his hand to the pack almost imperceptibly. As if he was asking Damien to share but was ready to pretend his hand had flinched in case of refusal. 

Damien’s heart stopped, then started pounding. Probably Mark was here to make up with him? Probably Mark wouldn’t go over to his side but at least he’d continue visiting him like that to smoke together in silence? After a few months of being apart, it was good enough. Damien bit the corners of his mouth so as not to grin too early and offered Mark the open pack and the lighter. Mark took such a deep drag that his cigarette didn’t last. It looked like he was seriously nervous. Mark’s hand flinched again and Damien gave him another cigarette hastily. 

He was thinking about giving away the whole pack but chose not to do it. Because then Mark would reach out again and again, and perhaps they’d finish the pack together and then they’d be sick and they’d have to go to the infirmary and maybe they both would be punished. It would be great. Damien bit his lips harder, but it didn’t help and his face broke into a smile. 

Mark looked up and said suddenly, “It’s not you. It’s me.”

Damien didn’t have to ask what he meant. He understood it immediately. 

“It can’t be you,” he said. “I killed my own mother.”

“Mrs. Baylock killed your mother,” Mark answered, taking another drag on his cigarette.

“I have the mark on my head,” Damien said. “666.”

“Father Tassone tattooed it,” Mark said. “They told me everything. They were preparing you as a victim. They wanted someone who was to come with the daggers to kill you instead of me.”

Damien pulled out the second cigarette and tried to light it but he couldn’t. His hands were trembling. Just half a year ago when Sergeant Neff had told him who he was… lied to him… Damien would give anything to be spared such a fate. So now he was spared. Now he was completely free – it turned out he’d been always free. Now he could give the cigarettes to Mark at parting, say ‘The Antichrist doesn’t have any brothers’, leave and let Mark deal with everything however he wanted. 

“Do you remember,” Damien began after he managed to light the cigarette, “I asked you to come with me? I wanted to give you half of my Kingdom.”

“I remember,” Mark whispered. “Forgive me”. 

“I just thought it’d be only fair if you offered me the same.”

Mark dropped his cigarette and stared at Damien. Damien continued, “I’ve gotten used to being the Antichrist anyway. Does it really matter which of us is he if we rule together? You and I.”

Mark shuddered and hugged Damien as tightly as he could. At this very moment, Damien felt something burn his right hand.  
When he raised his hand to his eyes he saw a 666 – the same mark he’d found half a year ago on his head.  
But now it was real.


End file.
